Hydrophobic microarray surface design and wettability transformation mechanism of μ-SLA 3D manufactured conic structure

Most modern hydrophobic bionic surface preparations are generally plagued by chronic issues that limit their uses, which are always characterized by a difficult preparation procedure of high prices and environmentally unfriendly. This work reports the μ-SLA additive manufacturing microarray structure capable of achieving superhydrophobic wettability with the maximum contact angle of 157° for droplets. By means of the combination of wettability theory and experiment, conical microarray structures with different spacing are designed to analyze the wettability. The preparation method adopts the micro-nano additive manufacturing process that can be formed in a single step. This structure imitates the rough structure of biological surfaces through regular array structure, which can lead to a significant improvement in the superhydrophobic properties of solid surfaces.